2–5 Aug 2022
Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (CMSA), Harvard University
America/New_York timezone

New measurements of the cosmic birefringence

2 Aug 2022, 10:30
30m
Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (CMSA), Harvard University

Center of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (CMSA), Harvard University

20 Garden Street Cambridge, MA 02138

Speaker

Yuto Minami (Osaka U.)

Description

Polarised light of the cosmic microwave background, the remnant light of the Big Bang, is sensitive to parity-violating physics, cosmic birefringence. In this presentation I report on a new measurement of cosmic birefringence from polarisation data of the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Planck satellite released in 2018. The statistical significance of the measured signal is 2.4 sigma. Recently, we found a signal with 3.3 sigma statistical significance when we use the latest Planck data and consider an effect of polarised foreground emission. If confirmed with higher statistical significance in future, it would have important implications for the elusive nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Presentation materials